Use a bit of showbiz style and with the help of an assistant, put them in a closed drawer.

Wait a few minutes and abracadaba, they appear magically transformed.

But this is no magic show. It’s a demonstration of Laundroid, the world’s first laundry sorting and folding robot and it will be available in 2017.

The precise technology inside Laundroid is being kept a secret, at least until the first one is sold, but here’s the basic rundown.

Unsorted clothes are put into the bin at the bottom of the unit. A robot arm picks up an item and a camera snaps a picture. Artificial intelligence is used to attempt to identify it and then figure out the correct way to fold it.

The process isn’t fast. It averages about 10 minutes per garment, but if you have it on overnight then perhaps that doesn’t matter.

It can be programmed to sort by color, by type of clothes or, if you program it with who in the family owns what, by family member.

Laundroid will be available from next year.“March 2017 is th time we are going to take pre-orders and the first shipment will be within the year 2017.”

“So we try to launch the product in US and Japan. Probably more volume in Japan and more limited in the US but we get a lot of enquiry from the US.”